Gukje Hotel & Hobak Night Club in Busan, South Korea: the location for the Friend film.

Friend (친구 Chin-gu) is a 2001 South Korean film directed by Kwak Kyung-taek. At one time, it was the highest-grossing South Korean movie of all time, but has since been surpassed by Silmido, Taegukgi , The King and the Clown , Speedy Scandal and The Host. It has since been remade into a TV series by MBC. A part of the music was composed by Belgian composer Luc Baiwir.^{[citation needed]}

This film is the director's experience about his friends, a semi-autobiography set in his hometown, Busan, and the actors speak with a strongly accented Busan dialect. The film changed the public images of Jang Dong-gun and Yu Oh-sung; previously, Jang had been famous for romantic comedies and Yu had appeared in movies with mostly cult interest.

Plot[link]

The film follows the lives of four childhood friends: Joon-seok, the leader of the group and whose father is a powerful mob boss; Dong-su, whose father is an undertaker; class clown Jung-ho; and Sang-taek, who was an exemplary student. As children they play together, sell sexually explicit pictures cut from a magazine, and wonder if a South Korean Olympic swimmer could outrace a sea turtle. Jung-ho also showed the rest of them a VCR that his mother had, and this film he found on it. It turns out to be a pornographic movie, and the boys are entranced while arguing over what a "menstruation" was, with them believing that it was the word that adults used to describe the "vagina".

Fast forward to high school, where they are reunited after separating during middle school. They become smitten with the lead singer of a band of girls their age. Joon-seok invites the band to a party at his house, where each boy pairs off with one girl (though not after some tension over how to do so). Sang-taek receives his first kiss from the lead singer, Jin-sook.

Back in school, Joon-seok and Dong-su get in trouble after a confrontation with a teacher; After their friends convince them to go apologize, they are only off with a light suspension. During an outing to the movies, where Sang-taek catches the eye of another school kid whom he had picked a fight with earlier, Joon-seok and Dong-su fend off a whole rival school while Jung-ho protects Sang-taek. Dong-su, after the fight, returns with a steel rod and smashes the school's glass cases with its awards and trophies, dropping out of school and warning anyone who bumps into him on the street will "pay". Sang-taek is suspended from the affair. After graduation, Sang-taek and Jung-ho go to college but the others do not.

A few years later Sang-taek and Jung-ho return to find Joon-seok married to Jin-sook, the singer from the band. He is seriously ill and abusive towards his wife as a result of being addicted to philopon; he also appears depressed that his father is dying. Later he recovers from his illness, divorces his wife, and mourns his father. He assumes his father's role as a crime lord, working under Hyung-doo. Dong-su also becomes a mobster with a rival organization, led by Sang-gon, and becomes similarly powerful.

Joon-seok, Sang-taek, and Jung-ho remain close, drinking, singing karaoke, and eating galbi together during reunions. After Dong-su causes Joon-seok's boss to be imprisoned, an assassination attempt, headed by Doruko, is led on Dong-su, souring relations and leading to a mob war between the two friends' opposing gangs. After an attack on his men, Joon-seok visits Dong-su at his headquarters. Joon-seok talks to Dong-su as if nothing has happened, and asks if he would like to accompany him to see Sang-taek off, since he was heading to the United States. Dong-su, however, does not want to, and Joon-seok becomes serious. Joon-seok, knowing that Dong-su would be assasinated for the attack on his gang, asks Dong-su as a friend to leave for Hawaii for a few years until things cooled down, Dong-su, however, refuses and tells Joon-seok to leave. Joon-seok leaves to say farewell to Sang-taek. What Dong-su did not realize was that Joon-seok asked him to leave as a friend. After mulling over the conversation Dong-su decides to see Sang-taek off at the airport. However, as he is about to leave, Dong-su is betrayed by his gang and stabbed to death.

A few years later, Sung-taek returns to South Korea upon finishing his study abroad. Jung-ho explains how during Sung-taek's absence Joon-seok's gang sent him into hiding abroad. After a two years, he was unable to stand the hiding any longer and had a mental breakdown. He was caught after attempting to kill himself in a foreign bar. Joon-seok goes to trial for Dong-su's murder and, even after Jung-ho bribes the jurors, Joon-seok pleads guilty to ordering Dong-su's death, despite his actual innocence.

After the trial, Sang-taek visits Joon-seok in prison, and the two talk like old friends who haven't seen each other. When the time comes for Joon-seok to leave to go back to his jail cell, Sung-taek asks why he pleaded guilty in court. Joon-seok simply replies, "Humiliation. Me and Dong-su are mobsters. Mobsters shouldn't be humiliated." Sang-taek and Joon-seok then part ways, with Sang-taek promising to visit every month. The film ends with Joon-seok walking back to his cell, in a hallway with a white bright light in the end, with Joon-seok reflecting on the past when they were all children, wondering who would win in a race, the South Korean Olympic swimmer or a sea turtle, when they were all still friends.

Awards[link]

In 2001, Friend was nominated for five awards, three of which it won.^[1] At the 46th Asia-Pacific Film Festival, Yu Oh-sung and Jang Dong-gun won the "Best Actor" and "Best Supporting Actor" awards, respectively, for their performances in the film.^[2] At the 26th Montréal World Film Festival, Friend was nominated for the "Grand prix des Americas" award for best film, but lost to the Hungarian film Torzók and the Iranian film Baran.^[3] At the 16th Torino International Festival of Young Cinema, won the "Holden Award" for best script, and was nominated, but missed out on, the "Prize of the City of Torino" award for best film.^[4]

In 2002, Friend was nominated for a sixth award, which it won. At the 9th International Festival of Film Camera "Brothers Manaki", it won the "Student Jury Award".^[5]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Friend at the Internet Movie Database

v t e Cinema of Korea List of Korean language films · List of pre–1948 films (A–Z) People Actors · Animators · Directors (list) · Producers · Screenwriters · Cinematographers · Editors Topics Animation · Animation studios · Festivals · K-Horror   Cinema of North Korea List of films (A–Z) People Actors · Directors · Producers · Screenwriters Topics Festivals   Cinema of South Korea List of films (A–Z) People Actors (list) · Directors · Producers · Screenwriters · Cinematographers · Editors · Score composers · Critics Topics Chungmuro · Animation · Animation studios · Production companies · Festivals (list) · Awards Box Office 2006 · 2007 · 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 1948 · 1949 1950 · 1951 · 1952 · 1953 · 1954 · 1955 · 1956 · 1957 · 1958 · 1959 1960 · 1961 · 1962 · 1963 · 1964 · 1965 · 1966 · 1967 · 1968 · 1969 1970 · 1971 · 1972 · 1973 · 1974 · 1975 · 1976 · 1977 · 1978 · 1979 1980 · 1981 · 1982 · 1983 · 1984 · 1985 · 1986 · 1987 · 1988 · 1989 1990 · 1991 · 1992 · 1993 · 1994 · 1995 · 1996 · 1997 · 1998 · 1999 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008 · 2009 2010 · 2011 Category